An away team finds Delta Rana IV’s survivors don’t want to be rescued.
Then the massive ship that leveled the planet reappears, beginning a cat-and-mouse game with the Enterprise that leads Picard to suspect a connection between the heavily armed mystery ship and the Uxbridges. The aliens cripple the Enterprise in battle, then return to blast the Uxbridges’ home; in turn, the Federation starship destroys them.
Picard has the couple beamed up to the bridge against their will. There Kevin finally reveals the truth. He is actually a Douwd, an immortal superalien disguised as a human, but in all the fifty-three years they’ve been married, he has never revealed that fact to his wife.
His credo against killing would not let him defend the planet against the aliens, a warrior-like race known as the Husnock, and his wife is actually just an image after she too died in the fighting.
Her death enraged Kevin, who used the powers he had always denied himself and blinked out the lives of all fifty billion Husnock instantaneously, without thinking.
Stunned at Kevin’s crime and sobered by his shame, Picard knows there is no court that can try Kevin and he leaves the Douwd to his own thoughts and conscience—alone.
In Michael Wagner’s only solo writing effort during his short-lived tenure as a producer, veteran actor John Anderson brings great dignity and mystery to the man whose grizzled exterior masks a sad and amazing story—though the actor has since revealed he almost didn’t take the role due to the death of his own wife only a year earlier.
A day of location shooting of the Uxbridges’ house was done at a beach house in Malibu; the moving master shot with the beam-in effect, a first for Trek, had the house matted into the landscape painting.
The Husnock warship, built by Tony Meininger, was one of the first not designed by a member of the TNG art staff. “Usually there just isn’t time to put into designing them if they’re just a ‘ship-of-the-week’ that’s going to be re-dressed later anyway,” said Rick Sternbach, adding that decisions on re-use are made by the alternating TNG visual-effects teams headed by Dan Curry and Rob Legato and their model contractors.
The mention of Andorian renegades marked the first time the antennaed, blue-skinned aliens of original Trek, who debuted in 1967’s “Journey to Babel,” were brought into the TNG era.
WHO WATCHES THE WATCHERS?
* * *
Production No.: 152 Aired: Week of October 16, 1989
Stardate: 43173.5 Code: ww
Directed by Robert Wiemer
Written by Richard Manning and Hans Beimler
GUEST CAST
Nuria: Kathryn Leigh Scott
Liko: Ray Wise
Dr. Barron: James Greene
Oji: Pamela Segall
Fento: John McLiam
Hali: James McIntire
Mary Warren: Lois Hall
* * *
A failing reactor at a hidden cultural observers’ post on Mintaka III draws the Enterprise to that world to render assistance. Before the starship arrives, however, the reactor explodes, injuring three scientists and causing their “duck blind” screen to fail.
An away team is sent to the planet. They successfully rescue two of the scientists but cannot find the third, a man named Palmer. But one of the natives, Liko, witnesses the landing party’s beam-up, and as a result falls, critically injuring himself. Dr. Crusher beams him aboard to save his life, a Prime Directive violation that angers Picard. A memory wipe doesn’t take after Liko is returned home, and he begins telling his brethren that the old god-legends they gave up ages ago were true after all—and their “Overseer” is “the Picard.”
Riker and Troi beam down in native disguises to find Palmer, but when the Mintakans find the missing scientist first, even their leader, Nuria, begins to believe Liko’s tales.
Riker escapes with Palmer, but Troi is trapped and kept behind as a possible sacrifice. Liko now desperately wants “the Picard” to bring his dead wife back to life.
Picard risk further contamination by bringing Nuria aboard to prove he is mortal, a tactic that almost fails until she sees he cannot save one of the scientists from dying.
Picard bids good-bye to the Mintakans (Ray Wise, Pamela Segall, and Kathryn Leigh Scott).
Meanwhile, lightning storms prompt a hysterical Liko into almost sacrificing Troi before Picard arrives. The native, disbelieving his “god’s” claims of mortality, shoots Picard with an arrow, drawing blood.
Although the Mintakans are aware of the out-worlders now, Picard leaves them with the knowledge that the rational path is the one they should follow—and the “duck blind” is dismantled.
If the rocky crags of Mintaka III look familiar to longtime Trek fans, it’s no wonder: they’re the Vasquez Rocks, a county park that was the site of location shooting for several original-series episodes: “Arena,” “Friday’s Child,” “Shore Leave,” and “Alternative Factor.” This time, shooting in 100-degree heat for two days, the hardworking cast and crew were joined by the local snakes, scorpions, and bees—meaning no attractants like deodorant or perfume could be used.
Viewing the story as a morality tale, first-time TNG director Wiemer shot his Mintakan scenes as tableaux, reminiscent of medieval morality plays. Among the guest cast, Twin Peaks fans remember Ray Wise as Leland, Laura Palmer’s possessed father. Wise also appeared in O’Neill’s The Hairy Ape with Frakes in New York. Kathryn Leigh Scott later portrayed Maggie Evans, the love of vampire Barnabas Collins in the short-lived Dark Shadows remake, while James Greene played the more than friendly elevator operator on The Days and Nights of Molly Dodd.
Rick Sternbach has said he based the design of the protruding scope used in the “duck blind” on the video cameras used by the TMA-1 team in 2001: A Space Odyssey. Using Trek’s own background well, Picard and Beverly refer to the memory-wipe technique that Dr. Pulaski used in “Pen Pals” (141). The disguised Troi and Riker also use subcutaneous transponders, just as Kirk and Spock did in 1968’s “Patterns of Force.”
THE BONDING
* * *
Production No.: 153 Aired: Week of October 23, 1989
Stardate: 43198.7 Code: bo
Directed by Winrich Kolbe
Written by Ronald D. Moore
GUEST CAST
Lieutenant Marla Aster: Susan Powell
Jeremy Aster: Gabriel Damon
Lieutenant O’Brien: Colm Meaney
Teacher: Raymond D. Turner
* * *
A routine mission to explore the ruins of the Koinonian civilization ends in tragedy when a bomb left over from that people’s long war explodes, killing ship’s archaeologist Maria Aster.
Now Picard and Troi must comfort her twelve-year-old son, Jeremy, who has already lost his father. The tragedy evokes emphatic feelings from Wesley and Worf, who led Aster’s away team.
But just as the shock is beginning to wear off, the boy’s mother reappears and transforms the Asters’ shipboard cabin into their old home back on Earth, bringing joy but confusion back into Jeremy’s life.
Jeremy Aster (Gabriel Damon) considers the alien posing as his late mother.
Data discovers that Jeremy’s “mother” is actually an energy being from the planet below. After it is trapped aboard ship by forcefields, the creature says it wants only to care for the boy, since the long-dead race it once shared the planet with was responsible for Maria Aster’s death.
Picard argues that humans must endure suffering and pain along with joy, while Troi points out how Jeremy can never have a full life in the artificial environment.
The alien relents after Wesley and Worf tell their stories, and the Klingon leads the boy through the “R’usstai” bonding ceremony, making them brothers.
Aimed at showcasing the often overlooked families aboard the Enterprise, Ronald Moore’s first script for TNG shows his flair for creating characters. Here he brings together three who lost one or both parents at an early age—Wesley, Worf, and Jeremy Aster—in such a touching fash
ion that the science subplot of the overly solicitous alien is almost overshadowed. With very little rewriting—though originally, Jeremy himself programmed a holodeck to re-create his mother—the final version reflects the first-draft spec script that caused an enthusiastic Michael Piller first to commission “The Defector” (158) and later to offer Moore a staff job.
Along the way, this story reveals that Worf was six years old when his parents were killed at Khitomer (“Heart of Glory”/120) and that Wesley was less than twelve when his father Jack was killed.
BOOBY TRAP
* * *
Production No.: 154 Aired: Week of October 30, 1989
Stardate: 43205.6 Code: bt
Directed by Gabrielle Beaumont
Teleplay by Ron Roman, Michael Piller, and Richard Danus
Story by Michael Wagner and Ron Roman
GUEST CAST
Dr. Leah Brahms: Susan Gibney
Lieutenant O’Brien: Colm Meaney
Guinan: Whoopi Goldberg
Galek Dar: Albert Hall
Christy Henshaw: Julie Warner
* * *
The crew see a seldom-revealed side of Picard as the captain gleefully leads an away team to explore an ancient Promellian battle cruiser. They find the ship intact, with all hands long dead, at the site of the battle that annihilated the Promellian race and its enemy, the Menthars.
But the mystery behind the ship’s fate becomes all too clear when the Enterprise crew members realize they are being trapped by the same Menthar energy-draining device that snared the Promellians.
As ship reserves drain away, La Forge comes across the original plans by the Galaxy-class designers. He then re-creates one of them, Dr. Leah Brahms, as an interactive holodeck character to help him find a way to escape the Menthars’ trap.
La Forge, who has been a little unfortunate of late in his dealings with women, finds himself strangely drawn to “Leah” as they fight the clock in search of an answer.
Finally they hit on the idea of using one quick blast to free themselves; then they shut off all power.
Finally, Picard takes the helm himself and deftly slingshots his ship around a last stray asteroid, after which the Enterprise destroys the entire booby trap.
Originally Picard was to have become involved with Leah Brahms’s holodeck simulacrum, but Michael Piller changed that to the more logical choice of Geordi, whom the writer likened to the guy who fumbles around women but is “in love with his ‘57 Chevy.” This was the first TNG episode directed by Gabrielle Beaumont and the first episode ever directed by a woman. Richard Danus was invited to join the staff as executive story editor after helping out on the rewrite, which foreshadows not only Geordi’s second try with Christy in “Transfigurations” (173) but the eventual appearance of the real Leah Brahms in “Galaxy’s Child” (190).
On the holodeck, Geordi meets ásimulated Dr. Leah Brahms (Susan Gibney).
This episode also provides another tiny peek into Guinan’s background: she reveals she is first attracted to men’s heads, especially bald ones, since a bald man helped her through a painful time—but there’s no clear indication that she means Picard, The art staff originally wanted the holodeck model to be a mockup of an actual warp engine, but time worked against that idea and yielded the compromise sliding panels seen. The Promellian ship Cleponji is a re-dress of the Husnock ship seen in “The Survivors” (151).
THE ENEMY
* * *
Production No.: 155 Aired: Week of November 6, 1989
Stardate: 43349.2 Code: en
Directed by David Carson
Written by David temper and Michael Piller
GUEST CAST
Centurion Bochra: John Snyder
Commander Tomalak: Andreas Katsulas
Lieutenant O’Brien: Colm Meaney
Patahk: Steve Rankin
* * *
Answering a distress call from the border world Galorndon Core, an Enterprise away team finds a crashed Romulan craft and an injured survivor. La Forge loses contact with the rest of the away team and can’t be located due to the planet’s severe electrical storms.
Picard and Riker suspect the small craft was spying, since it was destroyed after crashing, but its mother ship’s Commander Tomalak smilingly insists that his man—one man—was merely swept off course.
Meanwhile, efforts to rescue La Forge center on a neutrino beacon that can transmit through a break in the storms. But La Forge soons discovers what the crew above can’t: there is a second Romulan, Bochra, who captures the chief engineer.
La Forge finally convinces Bochra that they must work together to survive, especially since their nervous systems are degenerating due to the planet’s magnetic fields.
La Forge and Riker on the latest “Planet Hell,” Galorndon Core.
Tension mounts topside as Worf, the only possible blood donor, refuses to provide the injured Romulan with a necessary blood transfusion, and Picard won’t order him to do so. Tomalak enters Federation space, against Picard’s wishes, to pick up his man.
The Romulan dies just as his ship arrives for a fight, but the two lost below are found just in time, allowing Picard to drop shields for beamup—and show goodwill.
War is averted and Tomalak, still feigning innocence, is curtly escorted back to the Neutral Zone.
David Carson left a declining industry in his native England and got this episode as his first directing assignment, haying worked with Sirtis on one of the many Sherlock Holmes episodes he’d helmed, The second Geordi show in a row uses the chief engineer’s unique abilities, shortcomings, and sense of humor well. In an early draft he was joined on the planet’s surface by Troi, who had to incapacitate the Romulan.
Another story point—that of Worf letting a Romulan die by refusing to donate blood—met resistance from the writing staff and from Dom himself when Piller first suggested it. But allowing it to stand reveals how the series was beginning to get an alien perspective on Worf. It also shows that these “perfect” twenty-fourth-century characters could come into conflict with one another after all. And, with an audience still close to the conflicts of Kirk’s earlier era, Piker’s gentle reminder to Worf that Klingons once hated humans as much as they now hate Romulans is a nice way to set this Trek generation apart from the last. Beveriy’s shock at Worf’s stand is likewise a reflection of polite human society’s reaction; we also learn that she had never operated on a Romulan before.
Andreas Katsulas makes the first of four TNG appearances as the quintessential Romulan Tomalak (“The Defector”/158, “Future Imperfect”/182, “All Good Things …”/277-278); he also was the “one-armed man” in 1993’s The Fugitive and Narn Ambassador K’Gal of Babylon 5. John Snyder would later play a human (“The Masterpiece Sociely”/213), while Galomdon Core would again prove strategic (“Unification II”/207). This debut version of the palm beacons required a sometimes-visible cable that ran inside the actors’ sleeves to an off-camera power source.
THE PRICE
* * *
Production No.: 156 Aired: Week of November 13, 1989
Stardate: 43385.6 Code: pr
Directed by Robert Scheerer
Written by Hannah Louise Shearer
GUEST CAST
Devinoni Ral: Matt McCoy
Premier Bhavani: Elizabeth Hoffman
Seth Mendoza: Castulo Guerra
Dai Mon Goss: Scott Thompson
Dr. Arridor: Dan Shor
Leyor: Kevin Peter Hall
Lieutenant O’Brien: Colm Meaney
* * *
Troi falls for the charismatic Devinoni Ral, a soft-spoken yet determined negotiator who comes aboard the Enterprise to bid on an apparently stable wormhole found near Barzan II.
The wormhole allows almost instant travel to an unexplored corner of the galaxy, and the Barzan hope that proceeds from its sale will bolster the economy of their poor planet.
Ral, a human working for another world, arouses concern when he anticipates anothe
r bidder’s fears and eases him out. Then the Ferengi crash the talks and secretly make the Federation delegate too ill to finish bidding. In a pinch, Picard makes Riker take that job, hoping that the commander’s poker instincts will see him through.
To check the primitive Barzan probe’s report, Data and La Forge take a shuttlepod through the wormhole; the protesting Ferengi send one of their own as well. But after the Starfleet officers emerge in the wrong area, they realize the wormhole does change endpoints, and they escape just before it collapses—stranding the pooh-poohing Ferengi far from home.
Ral finally confides the secret of his success to Troi: he too is part Betazoid. She clears her conscience by revealing this to all after the Barzan accept his bid—and sadly discover the wormhole is no good anyway.
Ral tells Troi he needs her to be his conscience, to help him change, but they part, with her reminding him she’s already got a counselor’s job.
Despite the advance hype about Troi’s “bed scenes”—a first in the Trek series-the finished product didn’t quite live up to the rumored raciness. Other scenes, though, are wonderful: the lovers’ debate on the ethics of being Betazoid among non-empaths; Beverly and Deanna’s workout gossip, in which we learn that the doctor dated Jack Crusher for months (“Conspiracy”/125); and more good comic Ferengi scenes, including Goss’s crashing of the wormhole negotiations.
Matt McCoy, who worked with Jonathan Frakes on Dream-west brought a slick yet sympathetic air to the role of the galactic manipulator who finally meets his match. A veteran of the Neighborhood Playhouse in New York, he later had regular roles on We’ve Got It Made, Penn ‘N’ Ink, and Hot Hero Sandwich and starred in the films Deep Star Six and Police Academy V and VI. Kevin Pfcter Hall, who died after this episode was filmed, stood seven feet four and had donned the alien suit for the original Predator movie and the Bigfoot costume for Harry and the Hendersons. In the script, Ral’s traveling companion, quickly tossed aside for Troi, is named Rojay.
The Star Trek: The Next Generation Companion: Revised Edition Page 18